15 year old curfew

[Spinkles123]

What do you think is a reasonable curfew for a 15 year old during school holidays? What do you do when they break their curfew?
DS is 15 and usually has a curfew of 10pm during school holidays, unless he is going to do somethings like a party/cinema when we would allow it to be later. Most of the time he is just wandering round our town with his mates. Over the past year he has been in trouble on several occasions for taking drugs, so we have serious concerns about what he is getting up to when he is out with these so-called friends. He usually leaves the house around lunchtime and doesn't return until late in the evening. We have said we aren't happy for him to do this as he isn't eating while out so was expecting to heat his tea up every night when he returns at 10pm. We've said that at least needs to come home for tea in between if he is going out for long periods. He did do this last night as requested but then wanted to stay out later to make up for the time he had 'lost' by coming home to eat.
The main issue we are having is that nearly every day he calls us ten minutes before he is due in and asks to stay out later than planned. When we say no, he gets aggressive and he has now started to refuse to come back when asked and is basically doing what he wants. He knows that by leaving it so late to call that he has no chance of getting home on time anyway as he has left it so late to call. This seems to happen no matter what time the curfew is set, even when it has been later, he has still showed up late. He has been at least 45 mins late every day this past week. If I tell him he is grounded or has an earlier curfew for being late the day before he just ignores me and does what he wants anyway. It feels like I'm loosing all control of him and he has free reign to do whatever he likes. I know he is a teenager and to a certain extent this is what they do, but given the history of him taking drugs, I am really worried about what he is getting up to.
In terms of consequences, as he is getting older I am at a bit of a loss what will work anymore. If I take his phone away he will get aggressive and it would turn into a huge argument, it would also mean that I have no way of contacting him when he does go out. Interested to know how others would deal with this?

I'm sorry that you're going through this too @Eddyraisins 😔It's so hard to know what to do for the best and it is utterly draining, I really get what you mean about feeling like there is always something to stress about.

I have a 15 and 17 yr old boys. Totally understand how difficult and worrying this behaviour is. My advice would be to keep reiterating and (trying to) enforce the curfew. If you don't it will quickly escalate into staying out all night. Could maybe push back the curfew to 11pm or 12 even? as a compromise of sorts. If he doesn't come back by the more lenient curfew then I would suggest taking the phone away the next morning for say 3 hours. I've found with both mine the curfew can be difficult for them as it means them actively leaving the group they are with and making their way home alone. Which is difficult for them to do re their friends etc but also potentially risky coming home alone. Hence why any curfew is quite late. So in theory they will have decided to come home before then anyway
Find a friend enabled is a non negotiable with both my boys. I watch all the time where they are but I never discuss it with them so they have pretty much forgotten it is enabled!
I know first hand how hard it is to take the phone away but I think it is the only consequence which means anything to them, and there needs to be some consequence to change the behaviour.
My only other advise is not to give up - my 17 yr old has come out the other side and socialising in a much more mature way (friends houses, pubs)

It sounds incredibly difficult for you. I would still ground my ds15 year old if needed or take his phone away in the day. I'd consider buying him an old brick phone that doesn't have all the social media stuff on so you can still stay in contact when he's out but he can only have his nice phone when he's stuck to the rules.

I'm very fortunate that my ds has a group of friends who haven't gone down that route (yet!), but he is still pushing boundaries constantly. I know it's about growing up and developing independence, but it's tough isn't it?

This is really tough, OP. A few months ago I might have read this and thought, "take his phone away, create consequences etc" but I spent several weeks earlier in the summer at my sister's house and she is experiencing exactly the same with her 14 and 16 year olds. They know there is nothing she can really do if they don't come home. It was painful to watch, actually, and it really made me realise that regardless of your parenting when they are younger, if they decide to act this way as teenagers you are pretty powerless. It made me worry for when mine are older!

I do agree with a PP who said you should have his location enabled on his phone, although my sister said her kids just turn if off if they want to once they're out.

Solidarity 👊

10pm is a very early curfew for a 15 Yr old

My DD at 15 and her friends were getting the bus home after midnight if they were out together and many times they get the bus home alone depending on which direction they're going

Obviously some can be trusted less than others

To curb my anxiety my DD had let me add her to the Find my friends app on our iPhones so I can track her whereabouts at any time

Sadly most teens experiment with drugs at this age they always have and nothings going to stop that

Therefore it's unfair to have ridiculously early curfews which make them angry and resentful and missing out on time with their friends

The stress of being strictly controlled will only have the opposite effect wanting them to take more drugs to block out their nagging interference parents

We live in a city though so we have an excellent public transport infrastructure so it's fairly safe for them to be out later here.

I could have written your post OP. DS is exactly the same and consequences such as no money or no phone don't work. He just goes out anyway and comes back when he likes, knowing there is nothing we can do. We are just hoping it's a phase and that he will start to behave a bit more responsibly, but if he doesn't what can we do?

So what about making doing something positive a condition of him being allowed out at night?

Also, I have a 14.5 year old and I must admit I would never let him go out in the evening to "walk around town", it's just asking for trouble, isn't it?

I think if you have a teenage son who follows your rules and doesn't do anything he is not allowed to do, you can't understand what it's like to have one who you have no control over. Out son is not allowed to be out late, smoke weed, ignore us when we call him or stay at the houses of people we don't know but he does all of these things regularly. It is not as simple as "well just don't allow it".

Yes, we have Life360 installed on his phone so that we can track his whereabouts if needed. He has realised however that it stops locating him if the battery is low so we now have the issue of him running the battery down constantly.
His phone is currently broken though so taking it away isnt an option at the moment anyway (he is supposed to be working around the house to earn some money to get it fixed as I refused to pay nearly £100 to sort it for him when he just sits on his arse all day).
But even when fixed its not really an option as I fear he would become violent if we tried to take it away. Feels like I am constantly walking on egg shells trying to deal with whatever the latest drama is without it escalating. It's exhausting.

Exactly! I'm so envious of friends whose teenage children aren't behaving in this way. It must be so lovely to have children who want to engage in positive activities and spend time with family. It makes me so sad that he behaves like this as we have always tried to encourage him and support him....he has a loving, caring family who would do anything to help him. We are certainly not a family who lack morals or encourage this kind of behaviour so I really struggle to understand why he wants to behave the way he does.

Interested to know how you would stop them going out if that's what they decided they where doing? Simply saying we dont want you to go out isnt going to work, and physically he is taller than me and much stronger. I fully agree that I don't want him to spend his evenings walking round town either but we live in a town where this isn't much else for teenagers to do and he considers things like Scouts/Army Cadets etc 'lame'. I also dont have an endless supply of money to be able to fund him doing more exciting activities either so were somewhat limited on what he could be doing.

Sorry that you are having similar issues. It's so worrying but, like you, I'm really hoping that it is just a phase. I guess that we have to grateful that they are at least coming back at the end of the day and all we can do is keep trying to reiterate what we consider acceptable.

It's interesting that you think 10pm is early. Maybe we are being overly cautious because of the issues that he has had with drugs over the past year. I'm also usually in bed by 10pm myself during the week as I'm up early with other kids and work, so selfishly I want him home so that I can settle in for the night and not worry about him still being out. I agreed to let him out till 10.30 last night but he still showed up 15 mins late. I don't really want him out much later than that if he is just hanging round the streets with nothing to do...would be completely different if I know he is going to cinema/party/food/friends house etc.
And yes, I do agree that teenagers will always experiment with drink/drugs. However, DS has already been excluded from school because of it and is now also on final warning from new school because of further issues, so he really cant risk this again. I also think there is a big difference between smoking some weed occasionally and him taking things like Ketamine and prescription meds.

This is so true. You can only push someone up to their own boundaries. Which are all individual.